Chapter 13: Chapter 13: None of the Above

I lay on the cold, stone floor of my respawn cave, arm raised in front of my face, flexing my fingers. Fingers were good. I liked fingers, and I was quite glad to have mine back, thank you. So, now that I was back in my base and all in one, non-molten piece: Status!

Name: Katie
Primary class: None [+]
- Combat skills -
Unarmed dabbler: Level 5
Novice dodger: Level 7
Spear dabbler: Level 9
Novice blocker: Level 2
Dagger dabbler: Level 6
- Resistance skills -
Fear tolerance: Level 8
Pain resistance: Level 11
Poison tolerance: Level 8
Corrosion tolerance: Level 7
Disease tolerance: Level 4
- Crafting skills -
Makeshift crafter: Level 8
Artistry: Level 4
- Scouting skills -
Novice stealth: Level 2

Oh, that was new! I had a primary class line. And it had a... button? I focused on the plus mark.

Available class: Warrior (Basic)
Hold the stick by the blunt end and poke the pointy end in your foes. Simple, but effective, and this basic warrior class will aid you in doing just that.
Unlock requirements: Possess at least one combat skill.
Class features: Increased physical strength and endurance.
Skill domain: Combat
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Woah, please give me a little more explanation. What's a skill domain? What are class features? Does it boost my strength just by taking the class? If so, by how much? At least there didn't seem to be any downside to taking a class, as far as I could see. Still going to click next though, obviously; the 'basic' label combined with the very low unlock requirement suggested I may have better options available, and the previous button was enough to know that clicking next wasn't going to remove the option forever.

Available class: Scout (Basic)
Information is power, and there is a great advantage to spotting your foes before they spot you. This class will offer skills that aid in detection, stealth and exploration.
Unlock requirements: Possess at least one scouting skill.
Class features: Increased physical dexterity and heightened perception.
Skill domain: Scouting
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That was a little more helpful. Classes offered skills? So taking the warrior class would probably give me the stamina-using active skills I'd been looking for? Heightened perception might be useful in this dark cave, but what other options did I have?

Available class: Aranea hunter (Common)
Whether by circumstance or design, some people end up coming face to face with a significant number of aranea. Most people would get fed up with them. Some people do not, and make aranea hunting their career choice, in which case this class will help to ensure they continue to survive the encounters.
Unlock requirements: Kill at least ten aranea of any species. Possess corrosion or poison tolerance. Possess at least two combat skills.
Class features: Increased physical strength and endurance. Damage bonus against aranea. Resistance skills are more effective against any venoms or corrosive agents produced by aranea.
Skill domain: Combat
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Now we were getting somewhere. Much higher unlock requirements, common instead of basic, and a less generic description. It sounded like a straightforward upgrade of a warrior. Of course, without knowing the size of the physical boosts, it was possible that warrior offered large ones while this was tiny. And I quite categorically did not want to make spider murder my career choice.

Available class: Berserker (Common)
This class is the embodiment of the proverb that a good offence is the best defence. Sacrificing defensive ability for pure unadulterated power, berserkers can be a terror on the battlefield, fearing no injury, feeling no pain, and concentrating solely on the slaughter of their foes.
Unlock requirements: Possess fear tolerance and pain tolerance. Win a battle while fighting with no regards for defence. Possess at least two combat skills. Possess an offensive combat skill at a higher level than any defensive skills.
Class features: Greatly increased physical strength and endurance. Levelling bonus for offensive combat skills. Levelling penalty for defensive combat skills.
Skill domain: Combat
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The first class option that had an obvious downside. It also answered my question about the physical stat boosts; warrior and spider hunter were the same, or at least similar, while this one was superior. It would be an interesting choice; I did deliberately choose this battle style against the spiders, and my immortality was pretty effective at nullifying the obvious disadvantage. A double fatality, as with the spiders, was an automatic win for me.

Available class: Gardener (Common)
Not everything has to be blood and gore. Sometimes it's nice to just step back and smell the roses.
Unlock requirements: Carefully tend to a plant, allowing it to flourish beyond its natural means.
Class features: Passive boost to the growth of any flora you tend.
Skill domain: Magic
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What? Was this one some sort of joke? Like the tourist class that's popular in rogue-likes? From two good combat classes to this? I mean, I could guess why I'd been offered it. The murder tree was certainly looking bigger and brighter than when I started... No way was I taking this class, although I did note with interest the skill domain of magic.

Available class: Survivalist (Uncommon)
Lost and alone, you have done your best to survive, making use of the available natural resources to make tools, weapons, clothing or shelter. Eating only what nature offers you, while avoiding or killing the bits of nature that want to eat you in turn, your life has not been easy. This class will help reduce the burden.
Unlock requirements: Possess makeshift crafter. Possess at least five resistance skills. Survive several monster encounters while alone.
Class features: Increased physical endurance and enhanced regeneration. Class counts as an achievement for purposes of evolving makeshift crafter and all first tier resistance skills. Metabolic requirements reduced.
Skill domain: Resistance, Crafting
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Another interesting one, but it seemed more geared to surviving than fighting, and I didn't think fighting was something I could avoid; I needed to clear the dungeon, not build myself a shelter at the top of it and stay there. What did it mean by first tier resistance skills, though? Was that the various tolerances, while my pain resistance would be second tier? Also, I noted that the description was now personalised. Was that because I'd reached the uncommon classes?

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Available class: Fungi Fun-guy (Rare)
You have, for whatever reason, partaken of a portion of fungus vesania. Hopefully you didn't embarrass yourself too badly. Or maybe you did, and you just don't care, in which case this is the class for you. Party on!
Unlock requirements: Eat of a fungus vesania and survive the experience.
Class features: Poison tolerance and higher tiered equivalents do not act on anything you do not personally consider harmful, regardless of what the rest of polite society may think. Drug-induced changes to mental state do not negatively impact memory.
Skill domain: Special
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That was unfair; I didn't know it was some sort of ridiculously potent magic mushroom. I just wanted to eat something that wasn't raw beetle meat! Besides, I didn't survive the experience, nor did I want to remember it. Moving on.

Available class: Perverted masochist (Rare)
There's no need to be ashamed. Just keep on being you.
Unlock requirements: Possess pain resistance. Have deliberately inflicted significant pain upon yourself. Have enjoyed surrendering your freedom to another. Have engaged in perverted acts.
Class features: Can lower or disable the effects of resistance skills at will. Gain forge temporary slave bond as a self-targetable free skill. Class counts as an achievement for the purposes of evolving pain resistance. Pain nullification is removed from evolution tree.
Skill domain: Special
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Sorry, but what the actual fuck? How is that... Okay, so I did possess pain resistance, and I did inflict significant pain upon myself to get it, but only because I was skill grinding, not because I enjoyed it. And when had I ever enjoyed surrendering my freedom to another? I suppose I did find the spider cocoon comfy, up until the point it ate me, but I hardly surrendered. It caught me fair and square! Was it talking about the murder tree and its roots of inescapable bondage? I did surrender to them on a regular basis, I suppose, but not because I enjoyed it. And even if they did count, what's this about perverted acts? It's not as if those thick, wriggling roots ever explore... Oi, stop it Katie! I'd just get splinters! Maybe it was just talking about the way I'd been feeding myself to it? I suppose some people would consider that pretty perverted.

In any case, no, not taking that class. Aside from the mental damage I would take from admitting it was a valid class for me, the class features weren't even that great. Lowering my resistances might have some benefits for training, but it was obvious that the intent there was to let me experience more pain. No thanks. And a 'self-targetable' skill? It was equally obvious that would just let me enslave myself to others. Why would I want that?! It was rather interesting that it simultaneously would help to evolve pain resistance while also removing what looked like an evolution for pain resistance as an option, but I was hardly going to take the class just to find out the details of how that worked. Next!

Oh, apparently there was no next; the next button did nothing... That was the lot of them. So, which one should I pick? I didn't have a single magic class there, unless I counted the thoroughly ridiculous gardener, but it was obvious why; I had no magic skills. I'd bet a single magic skill would unlock a basic mage class. Maybe two would unlock some common upgrades. If I could get another scouting skill, would I unlock any common scout upgrades too?

There was still too much I didn't know. Was the class I picked now what I would be stuck with forever? Could I swap it out whenever I wanted? Would they evolve at any point? Could someone start with warrior, then kill some spiders and switch up to aranea hunter? Presumably I could get more slots, given that this one was explicitly labelled 'primary', but how common would that be? And, more importantly, why were the rare classes so crap?

Perhaps I should put off the selection for now. The perv... I mean, that class required a second tier skill to unlock. There was more silk to collect and eight more spider corpses to dismantle, as well as an unlimited poison supply. I'd bet I could get a few more skills to second tier without exploring any more of... what was it called? Arx sanctus? If I could unlock a couple of magic or scouting skills, I could probably unlock a few more class options.

Deciding to delay my selection, I returned to the shrine, carrying a full bag of water in order to wash enough acid off the corpses and equipment to carry them out safely. I needn't have bothered. Even before I'd cut down the new web, I could see that there were no longer any puddles of blood or acid in the room. Not even my own blood. The contaminants had gone from my armour, from the statue and even from the spider corpses. The corpses themselves were still intact. Well, that was nice, but why couldn't the me-soup at the other end of the corridor have been cleaned up too? There were even more maggots there now, and the stench was enough to make me gag even without looking at it.

It took some time to drag everything back to the murder tree's room, where I stopped to stare at the smug-looking glutton. "I'm blaming you," I told it. "It's definitely your fault."

And then I stripped my previous instance's corpse and chucked it into the pool anyway, because what else was I going to do with it? I hardly wanted to keep it around, and I couldn't bury it in solid stone. I suppose I could have tossed it over the edge of the cliff, but there were things moving around down there, and I didn't want any of them coming up to investigate who was dropping corpses on them.

The pool rippled as the tree claimed its dinner, then fell still once more.

Slitting my throat hadn't actually been too bad; pain resistance was a massive upgrade. It did, of course, leave a corpse, but I could always dispose of it later, as I'd done just now. Given my additional, undocumented side quest to find the best class, I suppose I could risk levelling up my poison tolerance.

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